Motorola Enters the Cordless Market With Print Ads From JWT By Jim Kir

CHICAGO - Be careful what you say over a cordless telephone - your neighbor may be listening with a baby monitor.

But Motorola is about to put an end to the eavesdropping, launching a major print campaign to support its entry into the cordless phone market. The ads spotlight Motorola’s Secure Clear technology, which scrambles conversations between the receiver and base that could be picked up on such things as baby monitors and police scanners.
J. Walter Thompson/Chicago was given the estimated $2-million assignment, its second from Motorola in the last nine months. The agency won the company’s $6-8-million cellular subscriber business, previously at Eisaman, Johns & Laws/Chicago, last October.
The cordless assignment comes on the heels of Thompson’s first cellular campaign for Motorola, launched in national publications last week. The ads for the cordless division appear this week in such magazines as Sports Illustrated; People, Entertainment Weekly and Working Woman. Both the cordless and cellular ads use Motorola’s spokesman, pro golfer Lee Trevino.
The cordless ads play off people’s fears of eavesdropping. ‘You don’t let strangers read your mail. Why let them hear your calls?’ asks one ad.
‘The most important feature may be the Secure Clear technology,’ said JWT group creative director Tim Kane. ‘We didn’t want to be overly technological, but wanted to get across what most people who have cordless phones don’t know: that it’s like hanging out your dirty laundry in your front yard.
‘Motorola is entering the cordless phone category with this product and they want to do it in a big way,’ Kane said. ‘They’re already a major force in cellular phones, so we’re trying to combine that quality image in cellular and talk cordless features.’
Buoyed by dropping prices and technological enhancements, cordless telephone sales are exploding. According to the Electronics Industry Association, cordless unit sales are expected to jump from $17.6 million last year to an estimated $20.15 million this year.
Copyright Adweek L.P. (1993)